t "[ilf Northrop Frye should write an essay attacking archetypal criticism, the article would by definition be of much greater significance than an article by another scholar attack- ing the same approach" (Schaefer 5). The reason, of course, is that the approach is not something in- dependent of what Northrop Frye has previously said about it; indeed, in large part archetypal criticism is what Northrop Frye has said about it, and therefore anything he now says about it is not so much to be measured against an independent truth as it is to be regarded, at least potentially, as a new pronouncement of what the truth will hereafter be said to be

The initiation of a discursive practice,unlike the founding of a science, overshadows and is necessarilydetached from its later developments and transformations. As aconsequence, we define the theoretical validity of a statement withrespect to the work of the initiator, whereas in the case of Galileoor Newton, it is based on the structural and intrinsic norms estab-lished in cosmology or physics. Stated schematically, the work ofthese initiators is not situated in relation to a science or in thespace it defines; rather, it is science or discursive practice thatrelate to their works as the primary points of reference.